Capitol Riot Probe Panel Set to Issue Up to 20 New Subpoenas
Capitol Riot Probe Panel Set to Issue Up to 20 New Subpoenas
(Bloomberg) -- The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is set to serve as many as 20 new subpoenas to individuals seeking testimony and documents, some as early as this week, the panel’s chairman said.
“I signed the subpoenas,” Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said Thursday. He declined to identify who was being targeted.
The committee has already subpoenaed some former aides and advisers to former President Donald Trump as part of its investigation into the siege of the Capitol as Congress was certifying the Electoral College results from the 2020 presidential election. Trump has instructed his former aides to not cooperate with the panel and has sued to block release of White House records in response to the committee’s requests.
Thompson said that former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon is the only person subpoenaed by the committee who has flat-out refused to comply with a subpoena for a deposition.
“There are some who have been subpoenaed who are negotiating their schedule with their lawyer, and some there is a back and forth -- nobody has just outright rejected the subpoena process like Bannon,” Thompson said.
He said former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is among those who continue to be engaged with the committee.
Thompson has previously said that the committee would subpoena John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump’s legal team and drafted a strategy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. When pressed, he would not say whether a subpoena for Eastman was in the latest batch.
Eastman’s name already has been mentioned as part of the contempt of Congress case the committee lodged against Bannon. Committee investigators have listed Eastman with Bannon as among other prominent supporters of efforts to undermine the election results who gathered at the Willard Hotel, two blocks from the White House, on the days surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.
As the committee and its staff continues behind closed doors to conduct interviews, depositions and do other work, Thompson said there are no plans to hold another public hearing any time before the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of the month.
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